The Essential Plays of George Bernard Shaw (Illustrated Edition). GEORGE BERNARD SHAW

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СКАЧАТЬ after all these years — to see what my children are for the first time! to hear their voices! — and carry it all off like a fashionable visitor; drop in to lunch; be Mr. Crampton — M i s t e r Crampton! What right have they to talk to me like that? I’m their father: do they deny that? I’m a man, with the feelings of our common humanity: have I no rights, no claims? In all these years who have I had round me? Servants, clerks, business acquaintances. I’ve had respect from them — aye, kindness. Would one of them have spoken to me as that girl spoke? — would one of them have laughed at me as that boy was laughing at me all the time? (Frantically.) My own children! M i s t e r Crampton! My —

      VALENTINE. Come, come: they’re only children. The only one of them that’s worth anything called you father.

      CRAMPTON (wildly). Yes: “goodbye, father.” Oh, yes: she got at my feelings — with a stab!

      VALENTINE (taking this in very bad part). Now look here, Crampton: you just let her alone: she’s treated you very well. I had a much worse time of it at lunch than you.

      CRAMPTON. You!

      VALENTINE (with growing impetuosity). Yes: I. I sat next to her; and I never said a single thing to her the whole time — couldn’t think of a blessed word. And not a word did she say to me.

      CRAMPTON. Well?

      VALENTINE. Well? Well??? (Tackling him very seriously and talking faster and faster.) Crampton: do you know what’s been the matter with me to-day? You don’t suppose, do you, that I’m in the habit of playing such tricks on my patients as I played on you?

      CRAMPTON. I hope not.

      VALENTINE. The explanation is that I’m stark mad, or rather that I’ve never been in my real senses before. I’m capable of anything: I’ve grown up at last: I’m a Man; and it’s your daughter that’s made a man of me.

      CRAMPTON (incredulously). Are you in love with my daughter?

      VALENTINE (his words now coming in a perfect torrent). Love! Nonsense: it’s something far above and beyond that. It’s life, it’s faith, it’s strength, certainty, paradise —

      CRAMPTON (interrupting him with acrid contempt). Rubbish, man! What have you to keep a wife on? You can’t marry her.

      VALENTINE. Who wants to marry her? I’ll kiss her hands; I’ll kneel at her feet; I’ll live for her; I’ll die for her; and that’ll be enough for me. Look at her book! See! (He kisses the handkerchief.) If you offered me all your money for this excuse for going down to the beach and speaking to her again, I’d only laugh at you. (He rushes buoyantly off to the steps, where he bounces right into the arms of the waiter, who is coming up form the beach. The two save themselves from falling by clutching one another tightly round the waist and whirling one another around.)

      WAITER (delicately). Steady, sir, steady.

      VALENTINE (shocked at his own violence). I beg your pardon.

      WAITER. Not at all, sir, not at all. Very natural, sir, I’m sure, sir, at your age. The lady has sent me for her book, sir. Might I take the liberty of asking you to let her have it at once, sir?

      VALENTINE. With pleasure. And if you will allow me to present you with a professional man’s earnings for six weeks — (offering him Dolly’s crown piece.)

      WAITER (as if the sum were beyond his utmost expectations). Thank you, sir: much obliged. (Valentine dashes down the steps.) Very high-spirited young gentleman, sir: very manly and straight set up.

      CRAMPTON (in grumbling disparagement). And making his fortune in a hurry, no doubt. I know what his six weeks’ earnings come to. (He crosses the terrace to the iron table, and sits down.)

      WAITER (philosophically). Well, sir, you never can tell. That’s a principle in life with me, sir, if you’ll excuse my having such a thing, sir. (Delicately sinking the philosopher in the waiter for a moment.) Perhaps you haven’t noticed that you hadn’t touched that seltzer and Irish, sir, when the party broke up. (He takes the tumbler from the luncheon table, and sets if before Crampton.) Yes, sir, you never can tell. There was my son, sir! who ever thought that he would rise to wear a silk gown, sir? And yet to-day, sir, nothing less than fifty guineas, sir. What a lesson, sir!

      CRAMPTON. Well, I hope he is grateful to you, and recognizes what he owes you.

      WAITER. We get on together very well, very well indeed, sir, considering the difference in our stations. (With another of his irresistible transitions.) A small lump of sugar, sir, will take the flatness out of the seltzer without noticeably sweetening the drink, sir. Allow me, sir. (He drops a lump of sugar into the tumbler.) But as I say to him, where’s the difference after all? If I must put on a dress coat to show what I am, sir, he must put on a wig and gown to show what he is. If my income is mostly tips, and there’s a pretence that I don’t get them, why, his income is mostly fees, sir; and I understand there’s a pretence that he don’t get them! If he likes society, and his profession brings him into contact with all ranks, so does mine, too, sir. If it’s a little against a barrister to have a waiter for his father, sir, it’s a little against a waiter to have a barrister for a son: many people consider it a great liberty, sir, I assure you, sir. Can I get you anything else, sir?

      CRAMPTON. No, thank you. (With bitter humility.) I suppose that’s no objection to my sitting here for a while: I can’t disturb the party on the beach here.

      WAITER (with emotion). Very kind of you, sir, to put it as if it was not a compliment and an honour to us, Mr. Crampton, very kind indeed. The more you are at home here, sir, the better for us.

      CRAMPTON (in poignant irony). Home!

      WAITER (reflectively). Well, yes, sir: that’s a way of looking at it, too, sir. I have always said that the great advantage of a hotel is that it’s a refuge from home life, sir.

      CRAMPTON. I missed that advantage to-day, I think.

      WAITER. You did, sir, you did. Dear me! It’s the unexpected that always happens, isn’t it? (Shaking his head.) You never can tell, sir: you never can tell. (He goes into the hotel.)

      CRAMPTON (his eyes shining hardly as he props his drawn, miserable face on his hands). Home! Home!! (He drops his arms on the table and bows his head on them, but presently hears someone approaching and hastily sits bolt upright. It is Gloria, who has come up the steps alone, with her sunshade and her book in her hands. He looks defiantly at her, with the brutal obstinacy of his mouth and the wistfulness of his eyes contradicting each other pathetically. She comes to the corner of the garden seat and stands with her back to it, leaning against the end of it, and looking down at him as if wondering at his weakness: too curious about him to be cold, but supremely indifferent to their kinship.) Well?

      GLORIA. I want to speak with you for a moment.

      CRAMPTON (looking steadily at her). Indeed? That’s surprising. You meet your father after eighteen years; and you actually want to speak to him for a moment! That’s touching: isn’t it? (He rests his head on his hands, and looks down and away from her, in gloomy reflection.)

      GLORIA. All that is what seems to me so nonsensical, so uncalled for. What do you expect us to feel for you — to do for you? What is it you want? Why are you less civil to us than other people are? You are evidently not very fond of us — why should you be? But surely we can meet without quarrelling.

      CRAMPTON (a dreadful grey shade passing over his face). Do you СКАЧАТЬ